Review: Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen

Abstract

Book Review| November 01 2023 Review: Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen Pekka Hämäläinen. Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2022. 592 pp. Illustrations and maps. Hardcover $33.56. Alan Taylor Alan Taylor ALAN TAYLOR, professor of history at the University of Virginia, is the author of American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850 (2021), which won the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History from the New York Historical Society. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2023) 100 (4): 134–137. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.4.134 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Alan Taylor; Review: Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen. California History 1 November 2023; 100 (4): 134–137. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.4.134 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search A distinguished professor at Oxford University, Pekka Hämäläinen has devoted his career to casting Native peoples as persistent and powerful in North America despite the Euro-American invasion that followed Columbus. In his first and most important book, The Comanche Empire (2008), Hämäläinen demonstrates how an Indigenous confederation dominated the southern Great Plains, fending off Spanish and American efforts to colonize the region. More recently, Hämäläinen’s Lakota America tells a similar story of Native power on the northern Great Plains through the nineteenth century. His latest book, Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America, applies that perspective to a continent over five hundred years: “Time and again, and across centuries, Indians blocked and destroyed colonial projects, forcing Euro-Americans to accept Native ways, Native sovereignty, and Native dominance. This is what the historical record shows when American history is detached from mainstream historical narratives that privilege European ambitions, European perspectives,... You do not currently have access to this content.